Page 104 of Unraveling Fate

“Oops.” Elspeth caught the wheel to stop it.

Cadenza winced and pulled the tangle back out. “Sorry.”

“Never mind. Let’s try that again.” Elspeth regathered the yarn. “This time, concentrate on feeding the fibers through at a steady, even rate. If it helps, try listening to the spinning wheel. It makes its own sort of music, you could say, with the pedal going and the wheel turning—gives you a rhythm to anchor your hand motions to so you can feed in the fleece at that nice, steady rate.”

Cadenza snapped her head up. “What was that last part?”

Elspeth raised an eyebrow. “About a rhythm to anchor to? Or a nice steady, rate?”

Cadenza sucked in a breath, heart thumping. “Both.” The earthsong—she’d always released it as one big tangle, one big explosion, because it drowned her like Taran’s drumsong ocean had done before she’d learned to anchor to his heartbeat.

“Are you alright, hen?” Elspeth laid a hand on her shoulder. “You seem to be taking this very seriously. My friends tease, but you don’thaveto do this.”

“No.” Cadenza grabbed the end of the yarn. “I want to try again. Please. And maybe, with that song you were singing before?”

Elspeth shook her head and chuckled. “Alright.”

The three women began to sing and spin. Cadenza closed her eyes to listen. The song moved with an easy, graceful rhythm that matched the tempo of their feet on the pedals. She pumped her pedal in time with the other spinners, focusing on the beat of it underneath the airy accompaniment of the turning wheel. Eyes squeezed shut, she fed thin pieces of fleece into the yarn.

The pedal worked, steady as a metronome. Steady as a heartbeat.

The ground hummed. The guitar wind slammed into her chest again, crowding her throat. Demanding release.

The pedal rhythm for spinning. Taran’s heartbeat for his drumsong. The earthsong had to have a center. Something for her to anchor to.

Cadenza pushed through the song assaulting her. There had always been so much of it, she’d never had to dig for the music. The Ferrari had been a rare exception. She swam through the earthsong now, cutting through the upper layers.

A thrum lower than the usual bass of the earth reverberated through her bones. It boomed, deep and hot, like the molten heart of a sleeping behemoth, but slowly, unhurried, its fire banked rather than blazing.

Cadenza dove into the slow-moving lava of the earth’s heartbeat, its fire warming her, and set her anchor, just as she had done with Taran.

She wound her voice around the tune of the spinning women and released the music a few strands at a time—a nice, steady rate.

Holding onto the feeling, she opened her eyes. A glint of silver shimmered in the air near her. A thin line of Thread materialized, looping itself into a neat pile that floated near her hands as she sang.

As sheSpun.

A grin stretched her cheeks as the women ended their song. She’d done it.

“Oh, that’s much better, well done.” Elspeth clapped her hands and showed Cadenza the smooth thread she’d spun on the wheel. Cadenza swept the Thread she’d Spun from earthsong into her hand. Neither Elspeth nor her friends gave any sign they could see the music-made Thread.

Cadenza thanked them all. “I can’t tell you how helpful this was.”

“Of course, think nothing of it. Good luck with your spinning in the future.” A sly smile stole over Elspeth’s face. “And give my regards to Drostan when you see him.”

Cadenza laughed. “I will.”

A family came to investigate the demos, and she left the group to their teaching. Iridescent colors shone from the Thread wrapped around her fingers and she marveled at it, wandering back through the crowd in the tent. Peace glowed in her heart, the despair of last night ebbing away.

A thought occurred to her. Yes, she’d done it. She’d Spun Thread. But what did she do with it now?

Something tugged on her. Her stomach lurched, like when she’d jumped up and down in a moving elevator as a kid. The air next to her hand brightened to a swirling point of light. The Thread hummed, pulling towards the point. She didn’t need Drostan there to tell her what it was. This was how Thread reached the Fates, to be woven into the tapestry of someone’s destiny. The portal would appear whenever she had Spun and asked it to appear. All she had to do was send the Thread through the point of light.

She cast a furtive glance around the tent. No one else reacted to the light. They couldn’t see it.

A couple pushed a stroller with a girl, maybe two years old, into the tent. Her father tried to hand her a snack, but she battedit away and twisted in her seat, reaching for the diaper bag hanging over the stroller handle.

“She doesn’t like those anymore,” the mother said, pulling out a different bag of crackers. “She wants these now.”